Uploaded December 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Is beauty in an object, or in a concept?
Materials have the ability to seduce or distract us from the truth, and beautiful things often mask ugly realities.
In this talk, Melissa Pierce Murray shares examples from her own practice of interdisciplinary interactions to explore the meanings and roles we ascribe beauty and aesthetics in art, literature and science.
If we concentrate on the presentation, we might miss the realities of material production (limited resources and waste products), of context (slave labour and inequality), and of politics (maintaining and reinforcing power or control). In the absence of absolute values, truth and beauty of concept become apt solutions to arbitrary sets of rules which we have ourselves constructed.
The talk is followed by a hands-on workshop exploring the question 'What is drawing?'
Is beauty in an object, or in a concept?
Materials have the ability to seduce or distract us from the truth, and beautiful things often mask ugly realities.
In this talk, Melissa Pierce Murray shares examples from her own practice of interdisciplinary interactions to explore the meanings and roles we ascribe beauty and aesthetics in art, literature and science.
If we concentrate on the presentation, we might miss the realities of material production (limited resources and waste products), of context (slave labour and inequality), and of politics (maintaining and reinforcing power or control). In the absence of absolute values, truth and beauty of concept become apt solutions to arbitrary sets of rules which we have ourselves constructed.
The talk is followed by a hands-on workshop exploring the question 'What is drawing?'
